F. Scott Fitzgerald once said there are no second acts in American lives. However, after having spent 20 years in the IT industry, serving in various roles from system administration to network engineer (10 of which have been in education), I’ve recently decided that my second act should be as a freelance writer covering the investor's view of the technology industry. My background in engineering gave me what I consider strong analytical skills. My 15 years of trading and investing gives me the experience to assess equities and appraise their value. I am a Warren Buffett disciple that bases investment decisions on the quality of a company's management, its growth prospects, return on equity and price-to-earnings ratio. I employ conservative strategies to increase capital while also keeping a watchful eye on macro-economic events to mitigate downside risk.

Apple TV: Saving The Broadcast Industry From Looming Collapse

My article on Thursday that discussed Apple’s TV ambitions caused quite a bit of controversy. Apple fans loved it. On the other hand, those that loath the company’s success hated it. But that was expected. However, I was astonished by the ridiculous claims made from the Apple’s bears that continue to show their complete lack of understanding for what the company is truly about.

Apple is more than just about product. I’m not going to attempt to bore you with the company’s history. But we only need to appreciate what Apple was able to do with the music industry. We all know how hugely successful and popularity the iPod was and how cool it was to wear those fresh new white earphones. But that was just hardware. We forget that Apple saved lives – or at the very least, the livelihood of artists.

The music industry itself was under attack from the likes of Napster and Bearshare and from anyone else that wanted to pirate the works of artists under the guise of “freedom.” Apple saw an opportunity and capitalized on it. Thus, iTunes was born and peace was restored to intellectual property. Napster was never the same. Apple saved an entire industry.

Fast forward to today. Television is in a similar crisis. The TV industry is in the same predicament about their rights to certain content and the leverage that they have with advertisers. Complicating matters are products like the Hopper that allows consumers to skip ads.

Also there’s the on-again/off-again battle that exists between television networks and cable companies. How long did Time Warner Cable subscribers have to wait to receive The NFL Network? Likewise, there is the outdated revenue model which is currently being employed in the TV industry that’s hurting all parties – including you and me. It’s not sustainable.

As it stands, content creators want no part of ads. Do you know why? Because TV viewers like you and I despise them. This is why a “like/rewards” feature as we’ve discussed from an iTV would be significant. Think of it this way, how much sense does it make for Dish Network to complain about content costs during negotiations? They shouldn’t – especially not when they market a product like the Hopper that eliminates the way content value is assessed. It’s foolish.

Content creators understand this. This is why they much prefer to have their money upfront. This is also why the NFL Network is able to charge whatever they want to those that deliver the content such as DirecTV. They wash their hands and let the content distributors to deal with the burden of structuring their own revenue model – whether it works or not.

In other words, run your business, pass the cost on to the consumer and figure out a way to make a profit. They have to do this and still manage the risk of churn. Right or wrong, that’s the nature of the business. There’s no way to truly assess fairness in this case. For now it makes perfect sense – except it won’t work in the long term.

This is what has helped Netflix thrive since consumers much prefer choice. But if this issue is effectively reformed, it might be the end of Netflix’s leverage and other streaming rivals such as Amazon’s Prime may find that it’s no longer an interest. But we’re far from this point.

In the meantime, what if Apple were able to figure out a way to break up the huge content bundle dispute – just as it did by offering songs for 99 cents? With an a la cart model, Apple was able to separate individual tracks from the entire album. It was brilliant! And it can be done again.

Also hurting the TV industry are sites such as YouTube and Hulu. Why? Because if people are able to create and manipulate content to the extent that Google can sell ads, then why is there a need for broadcast companies like CBS and ABC to spend billions on content only to have to engage in disputes over ad revenue. The embracing of social media says this can’t last. And they know it.

Recent evidence show that people are watching less broadcast content in favor of social interaction about that content itself. Also, this same study by Accenture found that 82% of consumers between the ages of 18 to 24 much prefer to watch content from sites such as YouTube as opposed to television.

What this means is that Google is stealing away the audience from traditional broadcast companies. It’s not Google’s fault, but the social media aspect is real. Apple can bring this all together by integrating social media with broadcast content – everybody wins. And this will serve as yet another example of “if Apple does not believe it can effectively disrupt a market”, the company has no interest.

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Can we talk about things that are tangible and real such as the iphone 5 release in China today? As far as I’m concerned, this is like Marlboro saying they’re going to release the Green Line which is 20 marijuana joints in a cigarette case. We can debate all about it, but like you said, Apple doesn’t care what we think.

Yes, but you’ve never said anything about how you feel about it. Rather, it just seems you’re avoiding a piece of news that is more real and tangible than the Apple TV discussion of how POSSIBLY cool it’ll be WHEN it gets here. You don’t think it’s a problem if only 2 people show up to the official iPhone 5 launch in Beijing? I wonder how many people showed up to the other less populated cities… And this time, it isn’t the online reservation system that’s hoarding all the orders.

what will save the broadcast TV is if the executive start cutting their own paychecks. Instead of paying themselves 100s or 10s of millions of dollars for doing NOTHING, start working for a living and getting paid working class salaries.

Ditto for NFL players/owners etc. The entertainments industry needs to wake up to reality – they had a really good run so far ; one that shouldn’t have lasted this long.

And by the way, the way the 99 cent/ song method that was applied won’t work with broadcast companies. They’ve seen the way music labels have lost hundreds of millions of dollars. Music execs tip their hat to Jobs for introducing it so early and making money off of it, but they said if they had it their way, they would have negotiated for much higher than 99 cents. This is why in this regard, they’re not going to let the broadcast corp to go the same way as the music label industry.

“The threat will still come more from the Android camp where they have many vendors already working with China Mobile and offering high-end phones,” said TZ Wong, a Singapore-based IDC analyst. While these smartphones don’t generate the buzz of a new iPhone, Chinese buyers are not known for their brand loyalty, and this could siphon away users considering an Apple upgrade.

Apple opens 3.9% lower, along with UBS cutting its rating in the near future, along with a very cold reception of the iPhone 5 in China, along with analysts already coming out saying they don’t believe the iPhone 5 will sell better than the 4s, which is sad. Honestly, sad.